


Yours to Own

by orphan_account



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Brainwashing, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Old Wounds, Physical Abuse, The Naked and the Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 11:08:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21427225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After the dispersion of Mann Co. and the transfer of power to Gray Mann, the Medic must fill the void that the Heavy has left in him after leaving to Siberia.He finds a place where he is offered the comfort he seeks, but he fails to see the teeth.Based on the events of the TF2 comics.TWs: Extremely Dubious Consent/Rape, graphic depictions of physical trauma/injuries caused by rape, emotional manipulation/abuse, implied anorexia/bulimia
Relationships: Heavy (Team Fortress Classic)/Medic (Team Fortress 2), Heavy/Medic (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 92





	Yours to Own

**Author's Note:**

> This one's kinda dark and pretty graphic! BE ADVISED OF THE INDICATED TWs! If you are sensitive to any of the previously mentioned topics, you are advised to continue with caution. Even if you aren't, definitely take another gander at that list and make sure you're ready for it.

Losing his position is definitely not the worst thing that could have happened to him. He could have lost his life in a horrific and bloody way, and if not to an enemy then to the law, finally being made to answer for all he's done and being put to the block or the noose or the chair, or whatever kind of death the law felt he deserved. He could have lost his mind to some trauma, reducing him to an incoherent, indecipherable mess of trembling and sobbing and nail-biting, forced to relive a vivid account of a companion's gruesome death - so many of which he _had_ witnessed, standing close enough to smell the bowels loosing and to feel the blood spray his cheek, and his familiarity with death provides him with the resistance he needs to face many more. No, losing his position is definitely _not_ the worst thing that could have happened to him.

_He _is.

It goes without saying that losing his place is inconvenient and interfered with his personal work greatly, so of course he'd be quick to seek a position elsewhere, and he just so happens to find a band of crooks who are looking for someone with his expertise, so of course he jumps on the chance, eager to fill the blank canvases with his questionable work, to return to his passion. Of course, what with his nose in his work he's not wont to notice _His _passion - His toothy, snarling grins, flashing at him from across the room; pale, frigid eyes peering at him behind the tinted blue lenses of a queer pair of goggles; heavy footsteps in his shadow, just barely upon him, moving in a stride so long that the toes of His boots come to rest at his own heels.

He should have noticed. _Would _have noticed, but he wasn't looking for it - wasn't _expecting _it, not from Him.

He finds himself thinking of his Bear now, more often than he had thought about him when they were together, and he recalls some ridiculous phrase regarding the unawareness of something's value until it's lost. When things went south, he went North - home, to the mountains, where his family is. Of course he couldn't blame him for that - those are his people. His blood. He could blame him for leaving him, though, standing on the platform at the station, approaching tears as the locomotive roars to life, only to have the Bear beckon to him through the window, blowing him one last kiss before the beast begins to roll, and out of some frantic desperation he chases that window as far as he can, running to the edge of the platform and perching there until he loses sight of it, and once it's gone he cries, and he cries until he's seated in the driver's seat of a worn out ambulance with all of his gear in the back, preparing to lead a life without the one thing that made it so worth living.

Eventually, though, after working with Him long enough, sadness dilutes into anger, then to resentment, because if his Bear had truly loved him he would never have abandoned him. Not for anyone.

_He _loves him, though, as He insists so fervently, taking him by the arm and squeezing it hard if he mentions anything about the Bear within His earshot. He wonders how He could love him with no kisses, no tender embraces, no whispers of nothing exchanged into the wee hours of the morning, but he knows those are the things he had done with the Bear, and the Bear didn't love him.

Oftentimes, He grabs his attention by pulling him by the back of his belt, securing him in place while He speaks to him, whispering things into his ear; not the sweet nothings he was expecting, rather reminders: _He didn't love you. If he loved you, he'd be here. Nobody loves you like I do. Only I love you. _

He keeps these reminders in his head, playing them on a loop during the day as he tries to focus on his work. _Nobody loves me like He does. Only He loves me. _He plays it when he sees anything that reminds him of the Bear; a large shadow on the wall, cast by an amalgamation of machines in his lab; an old pair of black boots left abandoned by a door; a picture he found in one of the pockets of his coat, of the two of them together, which he promptly rips to shreds and dumps into the toilet. _Nobody loves me like He does. Only He loves me._

There's one time he forgets to play them, though, which leads him to aggressively reject His advances, thrashing away from His touch, only to be reprimanded with a backhand that would later bruise the entire left side of his face, his eye swelling shut - a backhand that would render him almost completely disabled and therefore submissive, prompting Him to strip him naked and run His fingers on his skin, leaving scratches in the sensitive places, afterwards folding him over a cluttered table and tearing into him, stretching the taut skin so far that it breaks and he _feels _it, but his throat is closed and he can't scream. Eventually the pain makes him faint, and when he wakes stark naked on the tile floor with his eye swollen shut and blood dried on his legs and a red pool beneath him, he rises without his dignity and plays his reminders. _Nobody loves me like He does. Only He loves me._

After the first time he never forgets to play his reminders, and when He enters his room or his lab, or whatever room it is he's in, and He prompts for him to strip, he strips, and he obeys every command he's given, no matter how vulgar. He doesn't gripe or groan or complain, doesn't bring up the soreness or the blood, the agony of his bowel movements, sitting on the toilet for hours at a time with a belt between his teeth and tears on his face. He resorts to eating soup to reduce his waste, but when that doesn't work he just decides not to eat altogether, but then He notices and _makes _him eat, and while He spoons corn and potatoes into his mouth He recites his reminders: _Nobody else would do this for you. Nobody cares about you like I do. Only I would do this for you. Only I care about you. _

He knows that He means it, too, because the Bear had never done this for him, never made sure he was eating well after he stopped to keep himself from bleeding in the bathroom.

After that He starts to watch him while he eats, and when he manages to get away from Him for a while he'll puke up as much as he can out of fear of more bloody, agonizing movements. He doesn't seem to notice, which helps, and the hollow pain in his belly doesn't bother him anymore.

He's tired now, though, because he's having trouble sleeping since he's been playing his reminders all the time. He'll try to make some progress on his work, but he loses focus and drops a tool or prods a bad spot in someone's chest and makes them bleed, and he'll close the wounds and doesn't mention them when they rouse.

He manages to get away with this relatively easily until one of His proteges complains of pain in his side after an operation and when he opens him back up with Him in the room, observing the procedure to figure out if he's done something deliberately, he extracts a clamp that he had left beside his appendix, which had pressed against it and caused a minor breach, but not a rupture. Once it's done He accuses him of trying to kill His ally and passing it off as appendicitis, and he insists that it was an accident, that he's just so tired and can't focus, and he had just forgotten about the clamp, but gets reprimanded regardless, and then he can't work because his wrist is broken and his fingers are fractured. Now He starts putting something in his food that makes him sleep, and it's so strong that he doesn't have time to puke anything up, and with His increasing visits to his room in the darkest hours of the night, his movements are as painful as ever, and after a while he runs out of tears to cry and the pain just becomes a part of his ritual.

He loves him, though. He tells him every day how much He loves him, how He only wants the best for him and only does what He feels is necessary to keep him in line. That's what it is, he decides; he's overstepping his bounds, and that's why he's being punished. He needs to learn his place, and then he won't be punished.

So he changes his behavior and does everything he's told, and he eats and goes to sleep and operates and endures each of His visits, reopening the tears, and the blood usually makes Him slick enough to ease the process, but with how inflamed his insides are he's amazed that he remains conscious, the pain constant and intense as He rides him, but he doesn't complain, doesn't cry out. _Nobody loves me like He does. Only He loves me._

Then one day He makes a mistake that changes everything.

Though it's not a mistake - not a slip of the tongue or some unfortunate misunderstanding. He knows he didn't mishear Him; He's very clear in what He says.

_Be useful. _

He takes a moment to process the words, and once he pieces together their meaning he gets angry. No other words could incite such primal anger in him. He hasn’t labored his entire life, hasn't struggled through poverty, hunger, sleeplessness, sickness, and pain; hasn't studied and worked and practiced and _brought people back _to be told to _be useful._

He knows he is worth nothing, but to be told that his work equates to nothing? That is his limit.

Something awakens within him, something that had been asleep for a long time: his pride, his conscience. He becomes coherent again, and he slowly begins to discern all he had gone through, though the details are foggy: How easily he had been manipulated while he was broken and how he had been broken further; how violently he had been abused, how fractured his psyche had become; how viciously he'd been assailed, how he had sustained such severe wounds that his body would never fully recover, and he'd have to live with the damage for the rest of his life.

For the first time in a long time, he feels the blood rush to his hands and his legs, and his nerves are sharp and hot and angry. He feels his heart pumping in his chest, and he remembers that he has feeling, that he is alive. He looks at his reflection in a well-polished blade and recognizes the eyes that stare back at him as his own.

After six long months, he finally realizes that he had been tempered and beaten into a different person - one who was weak and dependent, in constant need of assurance that he was doing well and acting as was expected of him. That person's dead now, though, and he's been reshaped into another person; the person he once was, one who is strong-willed and determined, self-reliant, and does not need to be told to _be useful. _

He considers his reflection one final time and notices the circles beneath his eyes and the hollowness in his cheeks, and he combs his hair back and straightens his tie, then shakes his head at a dark thought.

For a moment his mind becomes clouded by such thoughts and he becomes subordinate again, subject to His authority, victim to His hands, but he grits his teeth and stares himself down until the thoughts leave him. With how much sleep he's lost and how little he's eaten, he knows he's like to pass out if he exerts himself, so he takes a shot of adrenaline that could be lethal, but that's a problem for later. When he backs away with his saw in his hand and fire in his chest, he knows the storm is upon them, and if he doesn't act he'll die with the rest of them.

_The Good Doctor is due._

Out on the field he finds dead friends, and by impractical methods he brings them back. Then He corners him, and when he looks up at Him he's reminded of the torment, the manipulating, the abuse; the hunger pains, the sleepless nights, the swollen face, the puffy eyes, the bloody thighs; the itching, scratching, snapping, striking, squeezing, screaming, choking, crying, whining, aching, and as his eyes begin to fill with tears he strikes Him with all the force of his resentment, and for the first time He has blood on His skin that is bled from His wounds.

He has one final punishment for him for this disobedience, though, and as His entire weight rests on his chest he thinks he's about to receive it when the barrel of a gun gives Him a jab on the side of the head, and the Bear casts Him into shadow.

A terrible sound escapes his throat; one of choking as He takes His weight from his chest, but also of despair, of remorse for all the things he'd been made to believe, all the things he'd been forced to say, all the blood and tears he'd spilled to fill the void that the Bear had left in him. A thousand words begin to bubble into his throat, but none get to escape as pain fills his chest and the world goes dark.

Not for the first time he faces the Devil, but he's got more important things to deal with, so he strikes him yet another bargain and rouses in the mud. He heaves himself up to find Him lingering over the Bear with His fingers curled around his throat, a terrible heart embedded in His bloody side, and he stifles his tears and his hurt and devises a scheme to catch His vicious golden eyes, which consider him with fury and contempt and power, a reminder of what He had forced him to endure. He draws Him closer, away from the Bear, close enough to feel the heat of His skin, and the last time He was this close He was violating him. He stares into those burning eyes and feels them pierce his soul, breaking him down into the elements that compose his being, draining him of his life and his strength the longer he looks into them.

He bares His teeth at him, and he becomes timid, but He doesn't get the chance to hurt him again before the Bear rises to his feet and tears the infernal device from His flesh with a horrendous sound, spraying the dirt with gold and red, polluting the air with the roar of a dying man.

As His life pours out of His freshly opened wound, He collapses under His own weight and ages a thousand years before hitting the earth. He stands beside the Bear and looks down upon Him, thinking again of all he had been subjected to for the past six months, and how all of it becomes a memory as his captor lays dying before him.

He's afraid to look at the Bear in fear of what he might see in his eyes. Out of fear, he stares at Him for longer than he would have liked, and as he watches the life drain from His eyes He stares back at him, and those eyes are cold and angry, and a terrible, bloody grin splits across His face; one final, cruel reminder that no matter what, He's won, taking with Him all the secrets of his being, the pieces of himself he could never get back.

Finally he turns away, the pain becoming too much to bear, and he looks up at the eyes of the Bear standing beside him, and he is met with adoration; sincere, genuine. He finds no anger, no bitterness, no resentment in his eyes - none of the things _he_ had been made to feel while under His control.

Suddenly he's overwhelmed with emotions that had built up since he watched him leave that day so long ago. _Sadness to anger, anger to resentment - resentment to remorse._ He starts to cry again, and without a moment of hesitation the Bear takes him into his arms and embraces him, and he goes limp against his chest and melts into the warmth of his arms, and he holds him tightly as he cries, unleashing all of his pent up despair, his rage and his bitterness, and as he listens to the sound of his heart beating in his ear as the Beast dies in the dirt before him, he finally remembers what love actually is.

_His to own. Yours to love._

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this wasn't too bad. I'll admit that I had some difficulties, especially towards the end - I made an effort to reflect actual cases of emotional trauma and psychological manipulation, and I know it doesn't reflect in the speed of the Medic's recovery. Perhaps it wasn't as graphic as you anticipated; I want to be extra careful about people's triggers, cause this is the first story I've written with rape and abuse and I'm not sure exactly how far is too far.   
Hope you enjoyed it, though! It was fun to write, despite its content.


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